House of Cards - Tow Jockey Five Second Review

The wave of the future is upon us. By that, I refer to the production of an entire season of a show and the subsequent streaming of every episode through a venue like Netflix. Every episode available from day one for you and I to either ration out and savor or to consume all at once like the gluttons we truly are. Netflix's second foray into original programing is the show House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey as a Machiavellian politician who uses everyone and everything around him to get ahead. He's abhorrent. He's cruel. He embodies everything that is wrong with politicians the world over. But he's charming and engaging. Like a college freshman doing the "walk of shame" across campus on a cold wet Saturday morning, we knew it was wrong and we hate ourselves for being taken in by him and yet here we are limping back to the dorm in last night's makeup and and carrying one shoe with a broken heel. The show is based on a book and on a miniseries that aired on British TV. If there is a flaw in the show it is, unlike it's predecessor, it has a lot of time to tell it's story and where the miniseries was tight and rapid fire, the new show has the luxury of indulging in subplots and sideshows. Some of these like the wife's affair with an artist are unnecessary and add little and we suffer through them waiting for the show to get back to the good stuff. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it damn good? It sure is. Is it better than 95% of the crap on normal TV? Oh hell yes.